Has Blogging Stolen Your "Joy of Reading"

As long as I can remember I have loved to read.   Reading has always been magic for me -- taking me away from the housework, the schoolwork, the chaos of emotional relationships (be they with family, friends, or spouse).

One of my favorite stories to tell is about my sister (who, sadly, is not a reader) abruptly ending one of my reading sessions by grabbing the book from my hands and shouting at me -- I have called you four times now.   I want you to answer me.

Yes, I could truly leave life behind and enter the world of the characters in the book I was reading.   Reading is a passion that I have indulged in for over forty years.   I would pick up a book and luxuriate in a great read.   Granted, some books were not as "likeable" or "entertaining" as another.   But that mattered not, I'd just pick up another book and read.

Something exciting happened when I stumbled upon Amazon, Goodreads and eventually, "what in the world is a blog"!   These women were like me -- they loved to read -- and, unlike me, they could pinpoint what they liked or disliked about a certain book.   And when they pointed that out, I had an "ah-hah" moment.   They could point out what my mind failed to notice -- why that book didn't quite work for me, or why this one was amazing!

I wanted to be one of those women, so I started reading with the vague idea of writing a personal review.   I went back and read my very first attempt to write a review (some time in 2009).   It was not very good.   I didn't explain what the author did that make me give the book a 4-star rating.   There is very little information about the actual plot line of the book.   In fact, it would be necessary to re-read to the book to know why I liked the hero and heroine.

Three years later, I'm still reading because I Love To Read -- but the unadulterated pure joy has diminished -- because there is that "review" waiting to be written.   Sadly, I have not taken the time to write that review after reading each and every book since then (for many different reasons -- the most prevalent being "I just don't feel like it").   However, my reviews have improved -- and I've even struggled to learn to blog (bought a book on how to blog because this computer stuff is not easy for me).

Just curious . . . have some of you amazing fellow bloggers noticed that having to write that review after reading a book has slightly diminished your Joy of Reading?

Note:   The awesome photographs included in this post were taken by my Uncle Howard.